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He found the collection of men he found waiting about in wholesale
establishments in Wood Street and St. Paul's Churchyard (where they
interview the buyers who have come up from the country) interesting
and stimulating, but far too strongly charged with the suggestion of
his own fate to be really joyful. There were men in all degrees
between confidence and distress, and in every stage between
extravagant smartness and the last stages of decay. There were sunny
young men full of an abounding and elbowing energy, before whom the
soul of Polly sank in hate and dismay. "Smart Juniors," said Polly to
himself, "full of Smart Juniosity. The Shoveacious Cult." There were
hungry looking individuals of thirty-five or so that he decided must
be "Proletelerians"--he had often wanted to find someone who fitted
that attractive word. Middle-aged men, "too Old at Forty," discoursed
in the waiting-rooms on the outlook in the trade; it had never been so
bad, they said, while Mr. Polly wondered if "De-juiced" was a
permissible epithet. There were men with an overweening sense of their
importance, manifestly annoyed and angry to find themselves still
disengaged, and inclined to suspect a plot, and men so faint-hearted
one was terrified to imagine their behaviour when it came to an
interview. There was a fresh-faced young man with an unintelligent
face who seemed to think himself equipped against the world beyond all
misadventure by a collar of exceptional height, and another who
introduced a note of gaiety by wearing a flannel shirt and a check
suit of remarkable virulence. Every day Mr. Polly looked round to mark
how many of the familiar faces had gone, and the deepening anxiety
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